Hunters nerfed?

With the new patch 3.0.8 coming out just two days ago, we saw a load of changes to hunters, especially BM hunters, and while it looked like a huge nerf, we weren't quite sure how it would all play out in the end.

For the record, I'm not one to rely for knowing anything about DPS in raid situations. I don't raid, I don't have much experience with it outside of one ZG run in Vanilla WoW when I wasn't even geared for it but my guild at the time had it on farm so they brought me along.

So I logged in to the hunter, more to continue leveling than to test out just how badly we were nerfed. At this point I was almost done with Nagrand, just a few more normal quests, and then all the group quests that I will probably just skip over.

I finished off the easy ones pretty quickly, and at that point I had already killed Gutripper and Banthar, two of the elite beasts for Nesingwary's quest line. All I had left was Bach'lor, but for some reason he had been giving me a lot of trouble. It just seemed like his damage output was much higher than the others, and I couldn't keep my pet alive.

Then last night I decided I really needed to get that quest out of the way so I could continue the chain and get the gun at the end. I also knew that BM hunters had been nerfed, or at least that's what everyone has been saying after reading the patch notes. I sort of figured that I would have no chance to solo him now if I wasn't able to before, but I was going to try anyway.

First attempt I waited for him to get clear of other mobs, then send the pet in. I started out doing well, my pet was staying alive for the most part, at least enough that it would probably last the whole fight, and I was blowing my cooldowns to get him down faster. Then I see one of those roaming wind elementals coming into view, and he's heading right into the fray. He aggros on my pet and it goes down, then they both turn toward me. If it was just one mob I would have tried to kite it, but with two all I could do was feign death and try it again.

Now I was optimistic. My pet was actually holding up this time, and when it died, Bach'lor only had about 4000 health left, and had that wind elemental not shown up he would have gone down.

Second try, clear out any hostile mobs in the vicinity this time, then send the pet in again. Once again I blew all my cooldowns, kept Mend Pet up, and all was going well. Then what do I see? Horde coming in and AoEing the mob of talbuks that follow Bach'lor around. I was sure that was end of that. They were probably after him too, and were going to take me out so they could have him.

At that point Bach'lor was almost down, just a few more seconds and I could head back to Nesingwary to turn it in. I took a look at the Horde group and they were just finishing up the other mobs, and I knew I was next. Then somehow I pulled off a few crits in a row and he was down! I rushed in, grabbed the horn, mounted up, and fled the scene. I wasn't followed.

I'm not really sure of the exact mechanics of what happened during that fight, but I do know that if BM hunters had been nerfed as badly as everyone says they were, I wouldn't have stood a chance. I was pleasantly surprised that I could handle that fight on my own, although I needed a little help to take down Tusker, but it did prove to me that I can still look forward to soloing a lot of content with my hunter that many other classes can't handle on their own.

At this point I think the only change my hunter will be making is her pet. I really like my core hound and his damage output, but sometimes I run into these types of situations and it would be really nice to have a tanking pet that can outlast the tough fights.

Maybe when I head to Northrend I'll look into switching pets, but I still have some ground to cover until then, so my core hound still has a chance to stay with me if we can get through this nerf and still be as strong as ever.